Many cities were hit hard as tornadoes and severe thunderstorms ravaged the Midwest this past Sunday.  Unfortunately, it lead to destruction of neighborhoods, dozens injured, and the death of at least six people.

In the City of Washington, Illinois, whole blocks of houses were leveled and cleared from their foundations as the tornado began from one side of the town and cleared Washington all the way to the other side, tearing everything down in its path.

Dave Jensen, a Prairie Ridge High School teacher, described a picture he received from a friend in a nearby town to Washington where he grew up as a kid.  He described the picture to be of his friend’s family standing in the middle of their house with no walls and a caption saying, ‘Family’s alright, but the house has seen better days.’

For many people in central Ill. this was a common shared experience.  Michel Perdun, a citizen of Washington, describes coming out of his shelter and seeing “the whole neighborhood’s gone. The wall of my fireplace is all that is left of my house.”

The Northwest Herald reported that  “An auto parts store with several people inside was reduced to a pile of bricks, metal and rebar; a battered car, its windshield impaled by a piece of lumber, was flung alongside it. Despite the devastation, all the employees managed to crawl out of the rubble unhurt, Pierce said.”

For many people locally, the worst part of the storm was the outage in utilities and the delay in the Bear’s game.  The storm did much damage, but was not as bad as it could have been.

The best thing to do now is to pray for the injured and that no more fatal injuries are reported because there is light at the end of every dark tunnel and hopefully we will be at the end of it all soon enough.